President Barack Obama's nomination of the first Hispanic-American, Sonia Sotomayor, to the U.S. Supreme Court, has resulted in a barrage of divisive rhetoric in the mainstream media.

On nationally syndicated radio and television programs and in Internet columns and postings, a number of media pundits, politicians, and anti-immigrant figures have depicted Sotomayor as a “racist,” and an “affirmative action” choice.

Readers posting to mainstream news sites also used the comments sections of articles to make denigrating comments about Sotomayor. They argued that she will use her influence to benefit undocumented immigrants and carry out an alleged Mexican conspiracy, known as the reconquista, to gain control over the southwestern United States.

Rather than focus on Sotomayor's qualifications, mainstream news pundits and other figures have argued that the President nominated Sotomayor solely because of her gender and Hispanic background and that her ability to judge cases will be hampered by her ethnic background. Such claims have given rise to disturbing claims and anti-Hispanic stereotypes being promoted by a wide range of public figures.

Some of the most common claims:

• Sotomayor is a racist
  Perhaps most common is rhetoric calling Sotomayor a racist. Glenn Beck reiterated his claim that Sotomayor is “a racist” on the May 27 broadcast of his show on FOX News. Former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo compared Sotomayor's affiliation with the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy organization, with membership in the Ku Klux Klan.

• An “affirmative action” nomination
  Media figures quickly dismissed Sotomayor's legal qualifications, arguing that her ethnicity and gender earned her the nomination. On television and radio shows that reach Americans across the country, these pundits boiled her nomination down to an “affirmative action pick.” One figure, Patrick Buchanan, reiterated this claim in a column by calling Sotomayor a “two-fer,” picked both because of her gender and her status as a “person of color.”

• “Voice of illegal aliens” on the Supreme Court
  To advance their anti-immigrant, anti-Latino views, individuals exploited Sotomayor's Hispanic ethnicity to argue that Sotomayor will be the voice of illegal aliens on the Supreme Court.”

• Pronunciation of Sotomayor “unnatural in English”
  In one Internet post, the executive director of an anti-immigrant think tank resorted to attacking the pronunciation of Sotomayor's last name and suggesting that Americans simply refuse to “giv[e] in.” Alienating the pronunciation as “unnatural in English,” Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies argued that “insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to.”

COMMENTS MADE BY MAINSTREAM MEDIA/POLITICIANS:

Glenn Beck, on his nationally syndicated radio show and his program on FOX News:

• “I said yesterday that I thought she was a racist and I got heat for it.”
  On Glenn Beck, hosted by FOX News (May 27)

• “They're just like ‘Hey, Hispanic chick lady, you're empathetic?…They say you're in.’ That's the way it really works.”
  On his nationally syndicated radio show (May 26)

Tom Tancredo, on CNN:

• “If you belong to an organization, called La Raza, in this case, which is, from my point of view anyway, nothing more than a Latino…KKK without the hoods or the nooses, if you belong to something like that, you have to explain that in a way that's going to convince me and a lot of other people that it's got nothing to do with race…She's a member!” (May 28)

Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show:

• “She is an affirmative action case extraordinaire…”

• “So here you have a racist. You might want to soften that, and you might want to say a reverse racist.”

• “Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist, and now he's appointed one.”
  (All comments from May 26)

Pat Buchanan, on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

• “She is also an affirmative action pick, Chris. Clearly. The president was down to four choices, all four of them women, and he picked the Hispanic.” (May 26)

Pat Buchanan, in columns posted to his Web site and to MSNBC.com:

From a June 2 column entitled “A quota queen for the court”

• “In her world, equal justice takes a back seat to tribal justice.”

• “Sotomayor, however, has an exception to the no-discrimination rule. She believes in no discrimination, unless done to white males and to benefit people like her.”

From a May 29 column entitled “Obama's idea of justice”

• Pat Buchanan twisted the Connecticut firefighter case [in which white fighters sued the city of New Haven for discrimination after the city threw out an exam for promotion to lieutenant that black firefighters had not passed] over which Sotomayor sat as a judge on appeal, to argue that she has displayed “support for discrimination against white males…”

• “…she is a Latina who will use her court seat to impose upon the nation the values of the National Council of La Raza (The Race), of which she is a member.”

• “…she was picked over the three other women because she was a person of color, a “two-fer.” Affirmative action start to finish.”

COMMENTS BY READERS TO MAINSTREAM NEWS SITES:

From MSNBC.com's “First Read” section:

• “This woman is another angry feminist, and reconquista, who you weaklings support because you have been made to feel guilty feelings towards every person with brown or black skin in the world…Have fun with 60 million more illegal invaders taking over the US for their RAZA (that means race in Spanish), as this woman will undoubtedly be behind amnesty, and your displacement.”

Comments section of Terra Haute, Indiana's Tribune-Star's Web site:

• “This new Marxist feminist ugly hag will only agree with Obongo's open border plans and amnesty for HER people. She doesn't care about Americans or especially… Whitey. Viva La Raza!!!!! We can easily see what this mass legal and mainly illegal invasion has done to California and the border states. We can see what it has done to Terrible Haute too and has for over thirty some years.”

• She is another example of why certain people, activist, or those with a specific agenda or race should not be allowed in any office or in government.”
  (Both comments from the same individual)

Comments section of the NY Daily News:

Before the actual appointment, in a thread discussing Sotomayor's possible selection:

• “Stop the immigrant invasion by ANY means necessary. Send these immigrant parasites back to whatever third world cesspool they came from. American jobs for American citizens.”

Comments on Alternet (independent news magazine and online community):

Under the thread title “She got where she is because of AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONNow it is up to HER to STAND & DELIVER”

• “So naturally, she would get a preference because she was born in the right time and the right place, the right ethnicity and the right gender… Although she MAY have been talented on her own, I will never know.”

Comments on Topix (mainstream Internet news site) Forum:

• “This woman is a member of la raza and is only going to advance the reconquista”

• “This woman is the female Hispanic version of David Duke.”

• “…and I thought it couldn't get any worse. I don't consider P.R.'s as Americans but just caca-rocha's. Why do P.R.'s tell other P.R.'s not to speak English - because they're part of the invasion.”

COMMENTS FROM ANTI-IMMIGRANT FIGURES/GROUPS:

From the forum of ALIPAC, a North Carolina-based anti-immigrant group:

• “Obama may have picked her in order to throw the illegal alien community (who the MSM [mainstream media] calls Hispanics) a bone, and therefore keep them happy in case Obama doesn't give them the amnesty that they want.”

• “She is a rabid, ethno-centrist, she rules based on emotions, not the law and acknowledges that her personal experience and bias in favor of minorities especially [sic], Hispanics guides her decisions…”

Pieces posted to the ALIPAC Web site with titles and excerpts:

• “ALIPAC Opposes Hispanic Supremacy on Supreme Court!”
  ALIPAC is launching a media campaign and calling on the groups network of over 25,000 supporters to contact members of the US Senate to try and stop the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court.

• “Sonia Sotomayor is member of Racist group La Raza! “
  As President Obama's Supreme Court nominee comes under heavy fire for allegedly being a “racist,” Judge Sonia Sotomayor is listed as a member of the National Council of La Raza, a group that's promoted driver's licenses for illegal aliens, amnesty programs, and no immigration law enforcement by local and state police.

Mark Krikorian, Center for Immigration Studies (anti-immigrant think tank) Executive Director, on his National Review blog:

• “Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English…and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to.”

• “So an Hispanic Supreme Court justice is an almost mandatory consolation prize for the amnesty folks.”